Any Other Choice
by aries-angel12
Summary: For King's Cross Station's 'Hogwarts Express Competition', for Hufflepuff.  Nymphadora Tonks fitted Hufflepuff. There wasn't any other choice.


**Title:** Any Other Choice  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>House:<strong> Hufflepuff.  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 903 words  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Maybe slightly gut-wrenching, but that may have just been me.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Nymphadora Tonks fitted Hufflepuff.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Any quotes, as indicated by italics and underlined, belong to JK Rowling and were sourced from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone or Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and as such were not included in the word count.  
>And Hufflepuff love. Written for King's Cross Station's 'Hogwarts Express Competition' - it's just opened today, so give it a look! :)<p>

_You might belong in Hufflepuff,  
>Where they are just and loyal<br>Those patient Hufflepuffs are true  
>And unafraid of toil.<em>  
>~ The Sorting Hat<p>

"HUFFLEPUFF!" The Hat proclaims to the Great Hall, and sighs quietly as Nymphadora tugs and drops the Sorting Hat on the stool and stumbles down the steps as she scurries to the table.

It was not as though there was any other choice, for Nymphadora Tonks.

She was not one of the leftovers, who missed out on the other houses by her own sparkling merit. The only cunning the young girl had was in her will to not be in the house where so many of her mother's family had resided. She did not have the sparkling bravery and plain nerve for Gryffindor, nor the pure intelligence and slight whimsy for Ravenclaw, but she had loyalty. Bounds of loyalty. And she had determination.

It wasn't often that the Sorting Hat saw things quite as this. It sorted the girl into Hufflepuff, watched as she was applauded and welcomed so fully, in a way that she hadn't quite been before.

_"Her mother's that Bellatrix Lestrange's sister, you know, that one who did those awful things to poor Alice and Frank."_

_"Her father's a Mudblood."_

_"Her aunt's the young Malfoy's wife, young Lucius."_

_"By the love of Merlin, won't that child stop changing her nose and her hair and her eyes and oh, her Merlin-blessed mouth before she **freezes** like that."_

She charms her fellow students with a nervous smile and a twitch of her badger's nose before she knocks over her glass while shaking eager hands.

-  
><em>For Hufflepuff, hard workers<br>Were most worthy of admission_

Hard working was perseverance, in a way. She caused too much giggling, took too much amusement in wearing her hair in quirky colours and was too clumsy to be called hard working. Her essays bore the marks of scorgifying charms and ink splashes, her hair striped proudly yellow and black at the Quidditch games she avidly watched and the smile stayed bright on her face while being turned down with a solid no when she turns up at auditions with a bruising eye and an eager hand wrapped around her broomstick.

She works hard and stays loyal to her House. She keeps a smile and the warmest laugh on her face when she's not named Prefect, and takes delight in pranking the new ones, all in good faith. She keeps her loyalty to her mother and to her father when she graduates and takes her Auror's testing. She works hard and stays true to her own little family and loyal to her cause. She takes up the mantle of the black sheep of the Blacks, as there is no one else who holds a claim who is not in Azkaban.

She works harder still when she hears of Voldemort's return. She perseveres. She is not stupid enough to not know that the threat is true, and she has grown up in the shadow left by his followers to know the truth behind the threat. It is her loyalty which drives her, to her mother, to the Order of the Phoenix, and her sense of justice and right when she battles against her uncle and aunt in the Ministry of Magic.

She gives herself more hard work when she falls in love with Remus Lupin, who tries to be brave and chivalrous and keep the nerve to not allow her in and to keep her away from the ruin of his life and daring enough to sacrifice a return in his happiness for a life of misery. She works hard, she perseveres and she stays just and true and loyal to a man who has lost so much loyalty, and her nerve pays off in the end. Her just and truth and loyalty bring her her death, but her hard work and loyalty and her love for others create a legacy and not her downfall.

She didn't have the brains for Ravenclaw, to be logical and rational and to think everything through and to have the fullest belief in what she thought was true. She didn't have the outlandish bravery and nerve and daring and honour and riskiness to be a Gryffindor, not entirely, because her belief in loyalty and just and truth are stronger and she believes in perseverance too. She isn't a Slytherin because of her family, and because she has a drive and not ambition and it is hard work and not cunning that will get her there.

She is a Hufflepuff, down to the end.

She works hard to achieve her career, to win and keep the man she loves and to fight in a war with an impossible outcome and to give her child a future no matter the cost. She stays just and true in her career, in her love, in her friendship. She perseveres through her Auror training, through her battles with love. She stays loyal to her family, to her friends, to the Order of the Phoenix and to the right side. She has worked hard and she has persevered and it is the choice between being just and true and loyal to her husband or to her child or to her friends and her family and to the remnants of the Order and memories of men and women better and braver than her. She places her hope in trust, hard work and perseverance, in the perseverance of the hope and loyalty and truth and justice she has lived her life by, and hopes they will be enough for Teddy's life.


End file.
